Garment protector



J ne-16,1942; J. cobL, JR. m 2,2 6 78 *GARM NT PROTECTOR Fil ed June 12, 1940 a Haze/s, K/ H, Fos rams HARRIS Y ib o Patented June 16, 1942 UNITED STATES AT E N T OFFICE- 2,286,788 GARMENT PROTECTOR.

Application June'12, 1940', Serial No. 340,104'

4- Claims.

Our invention relates to garment protecting devices, with'spe'cial reference to covering devices for protecting garments on hangers.

A general object of our invention is to provide an efficient garment protector for use with conventional hangers that is simple'in. construction and inexpensive to manufacture.

The ease and convenience with which such protectors may be manipulated is of special importance when the protectors are employed on display racks in salesrooms. Any time spent by a sales person in manipulating the protectors to cover and uncover garments is necessarily unproductive time and therefore to be reduced to a minimum. Some older types of garment protectors have fasteners requiring manipulation. Other protectors require that the hooks of the hangers be inserted or removed through apertures in the protectors by procedures that are unavoidably awkward. Stillother protectors offer a measure of convenience in manipulation,

but require special hangers and are without utility when employed with conventional hangers.

One of the important objects of our invention is to provide a garment protector for use with conventional hangers that is easily and quickly mounted on or removed from a garment on a hanger. More specifically, it is our purpose to provide an efficient protector that may bemounted on or removed from a garment with a single simple movement on the part. of the operator.

Our invention is characterized by the concept of an open-bottom cover of flexible sheet material that is closed on one face and is split centrally on the other face to provide two wings that separate to admit the hook of a hanger without requiring that the hook of the hanger be passed endwise through the material of the cover. One object in mind is to so design such a. cover that the two wings normally cooperate to protect a garment when the garment is stored on a rack and yet readily separate to admit or release the accompanying hanger when required. One of our objects is to provide such a-proiector in which the two wings may be made to separate automatically either by simple tilting of the protector to cause the wings. to swing by gravity or by a simple movement of the protector inducing air resistance to swing the wings.

The above and other objects of our invention will be apparent in the followingdetailed description, taken with the accompanying draw- In the drawing, which'is to be considered as illustrative only:

Fig. 1 is a front elevationof; a preferred. em bodiment of our invention shown. as employed to protect a garment on a conventionalhang'er;

Fig. 2 is a transverse section taken. asindicated by the line 2-2' of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a perspective view indicating: one manner in which a garment on a hanger and the protector may be manipulated to mount the protector on the garment; and

Fig; t is a similar view indicating a second procedure for mounting the protectoron agarment.

The preferred embodiment of our garment protector generally designatediby the numeral I0 is an open-bottom cover that is fabricated of sheet material that is preferably flexible and preferably transparent. One face of'the protector, which may be: termed the-closed face isformed by a single. curtain. or'sheet H of the flexible materi'a'l,.the sheetbeing dimensioned and shaped to overlie. onesid'e of a garinent'on a hanger. The

other face of the protector which may be termed the split face is. formed by a pair of curtains or wings l3 and M whichnormally'meet or lap at'their inner edges to effectively cover the other side of the garment. It may be: noted. in Fig. 1 that the two curtains. l3 and M are hingedly attached to the body of the protector at the vertical zone of overlap and therefore tend to close together when the garment protector is in upright disposition, no fastening means .beingrequire-d to cause the two curtains to overlap to protect the garment efiectively.

Fig. 1 shows the protector H] in its normal efiective position at which it covers the upper end. of agarment' 15 that is mounted on a hanger IS, the hanger I B being suspended by' a hook member I! havinga stem i8. In the preferred form of our invention illustrated in the drawing the two curtains I3 and M' are cut away to provide an. opening or cl'earance'space 29in the normal disposition'of'the protector for the stem portion: lot the. hanger'hook, and below the opening 20 the two curtains normally overlap to'prevent exposure of the upper portion of the garment to dust.

The various flexible sheets required. to fabricate the cover may be sewn or joined together in any suitable manner. In our preferred construction, in which transparent sheets, such as cellulose acetate, are employed, the sheets are joined together by sewing and-stripsof suitable material, such as cloth, are added to reinforce and bind all the edges of the sheets, the binding strips embracing the edges ofthe transparent 'sheets'from. both sides andibeing attached by sewing through the sheets. The drawing shows a strip 2I of such binding along the lower straight edge of the sheet I I, the strip being continued along the lower straight edges of the two wings I3 and I4. A second strip 22 extends along the side and top edges of the sheet II and conceals the juncture of the sheet II with the two sheets forming the wings I3 and I4. In like manner the inner edges of the wings I3 and M are protected by binding strips 23, each of which extends from the strip 22 at the top of the protector to the strip 2| at the bottom.

In the construction described, the two wings l3 and I4 are hinged to the rest of the structure and it is important to note that thehinges for the two wings are so disposed that the wings move apart when swung outward from sheet II and in moving apart form a gapleading to the previously mentioned clearance space 20. One simple procedure for causing the wings to swing outward to provide such a gap is simply to ,tilt the device towards its split-face side to cause the two wings I3 and I4 to hang away from the closed side of the protector, as indicated in Fig. 3.

While it is to be understood that our device may be constructed only as described to this point, in some practises of our invention we prefer to lend appreciable rigidity to the structure to the end that the protector will maintain substantially its normal configuration when supported from a minor portion thereof. The required rigidity may be achieved by employing material for the sheet II that is inherently rigid to the required degree. We'prefer, however, to employ relatively flexible sheet material as described and to incorporate in the construction some type of reinforcement or stiffener. For example, in our preferred construction we conceal a wire 25 of the required stiffness-in the binding strip 2|, the wire being nearly-coextensive with the sheet I I.

A further refinement in our preferred design is the addition of means to weight the two wings I3 and I4 for the purpose of favoring the swingingof the wings away from the sheet H when the protector is tilted towards its split-face side. Such weights may comprise simply short pieces of wire 26 encased in the lower ends of the two binding strips 23 at the inner edges of the two wings l3 and I4.

Fig. 3 illustrates that procedure of mounting a protector ID on a garment I5 that is characterized by the step of tilting the protector towards its split-face side to cause the two wings I3 and I4 to separate. The person using the device grasps with one hand (not shown) a portion of the sheet I I at the lower edge thereof and holds the sheet tilted as shown to cause the wings I3 and I4 to hang apart and form a gap 28. The other hand of the user (not shown) grasps the shoulder of the garment I5 with the hanger I6 enclosed therein or grasps the hanger alone at the neck of the garment and'tilts the hanger to a position suitable for passing the stem portion I8 of the hanger hook through the gap 28 upward towards the upper edge of the sheet II. The protector is then released to rest on the garment and the hanger is returned to its normal'vertical position shown in Fig. 1. It is to be noted that the weights 26 concealed in the Wings I3 and I4 not only favor the desired separation of the win-gs when the garment protector is tilted to receive the garment, but also favor the closing of the gap when the garment protector is subsequently turned back to normal disposition, the

weights thereafter tending to hold the flaps against the garment.

The purpose of Fig. 4 is to illustrate another procedure for mounting the protector on a garment that hangs from a hanger. This second procedure is characterized by the step of moving the protector towards the garment in such a manner that air resistance causes the wings I3 and I4 to swing outward from the sheet II to form the gap 28 for receiving the hook stem I8. The user of the device grasps the shoulder of the garment and the enclosed hanger in such manner as to hold the garment and hanger in substantially vertical disposition. The user then manipulates the cover by moving it downward from above the garment sufiiciently rapidly to cause air resistance acting on the open bottom of the protector to bell out" the protector as shown, the wings l3 and I4 diverging outward from the sheet II. In this manipulation the cover need not be tilted to either side.

The preferred form of our invention described in specific detail herein for the purpose of disclosure and to illustrate the principles involved will suggest to those skilled in the art various changes, modifications, and substitutions that do not depart from our inventive concept; we reserve the right to all such changes, modifications, and substitutions that properly come within the scope of our appended claims.

We claim as our invention:

1. A device for protecting a garment on a hanger having a hook, said device comprising: an open-bottom cover of flexible sheet material closed on one face and split centrally on the other face to provide two wings on said other face adapted to separate to admit said hook laterally when the cover is tilted toward said split-faced side; a stiffener reinforcing said cover and making the cover sufiiciently rigid to maintain substantially its normal configuration when supported. at a minor portion thereof, whereby an operator grasping a portion of the cover may hold the cover in said tilted position; and weights attached to said Wings respectively to favor separation of the wings when the cover is so tilted.

2. A device for protecting a garment on a hanger with a hook, said device comprising: an open-bottom cover closed on one face and split centrally on the other face to provide two wings on said other face adapted to separate to admit said hook laterally when the cover is tilted toward said split-faced side, said two wings being of flexible material and being weighted to favor separation when the device is tilted.

3. In a. protecting garment cover for use on a coat hanger having a suspension hook, the combination of: a sheet of flexible material forming a back sheet; a pair of sheets of flexible material marginally connected with the top and side edges of said back sheet and forming a pair of front sheets, said front sheets having free central edges overlapping each other adjacent the center of said back sheet; and a relatively rigid rod member secured to and extending along the bottom of said back sheet to maintain the bottom of the back sheet substantially rigid whereby when an operator loosely grasps the bottom of said back sheet said front sheets will fall apart along said central edges to permit said suspension hook to pass therebetween to the top of said sheets.

4. In a protecting garment cover for use on a coat hanger having a suspension hook, the combination of: a sheet of flexible material forming a back sheet; a pair of sheets of flexible material marginally connected with the top and side edges of said back sheet and forming, a pair of front sheets, said front sheets having free central edges overlapping each other adjacent the center of said back sheet; a stiffener member secured to and extending along the bottom of said back sheet to maintain the bottom of the back sheet substantially rigid whereby when an operator loosely grasps the bottom of said back sheet said front sheets will fall apart along said central edges to permit said suspension hook to pass therebetween to the top of said sheets; and a weight attached to each of said front sheets adjacent; the lower portion of said central edge.

IRA J. COOL, JR. ELLIS H. WILDMAN. 

